Kathy Hogan Trocheck - Truman Kicklighter 01 - Lickety-Split (14 page)

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Truman agreed.

Truman eyed the guy leaning against the receptionist’s desk, chatting with Yvonne Sweatt. Good-looking, tan. He was vaguely familiar.

Probably somebody from this Cosmic Church outfit, Truman decided, checking out the merchandise.

“Mr. Kicklighter?”

“Yeah?” Truman wasn’t usually this rude, but today politeness wasn’t in him.

The younger man smiled and held out his hand to shake. “Bobby Roberts. St. Pete Police Department.”

“You were at the track. When we found the body.”

“That’s right,” Roberts said. “You know, I went to high school with a Cheryl Kicklighter. Would you be any relation?”

“Her father,” Truman said, waiting.

He smiled shyly. “I shouldn’t tell you this. I used to have kind of a crush on your daughter. What’s she up to these days? She live around here?”

“Yes,” Truman said warily. “She teaches kindergarten and she goes to school nights. She’s working on her master’s degree.”

“A teacher, huh? So is she married or anything like that?”

“Cheryl’s divorced,” he told Roberts. He gave him a searching look. “What was it you wanted to see me about? Or did you want to see me?”

Roberts slapped his forehead. “Hey. What am I doing, going on about old times? Mr. Kicklighter, I’m working on the Rosie Figueroa homicide. There’s some questions I’d like to ask you.”

The reporter in him came back. “Could I see your badge or something?” Truman asked. “No offense, but you never know.”

“Sure,” Roberts said. “Can we sit down over there to talk?”

He was pointing at the wicker chairs and rockers in the front window of the lobby. He reached into his inner coat pocket and brought out a badge pinned to a leather case.

Truman peered at it. It was a uniformed officer’s shield. “You’re not a detective?”

“No, sir. My captain just wanted me to do some follow-up stuff.”

They were sitting in the window now, the afternoon sun streaming in on them, showing strong lines of dust motes.

“Like what?” Truman asked. “I thought the D.A. agreed to drop the charges against Mel. Doesn’t that mean the investigation is closed?”

“Not really,” Bobby said. “There are so many loose ends. My supervisor hates loose ends. ‘They’ll jump up and bite you on the ass every time,’ that’s what he always says.”

“True enough,” Truman agreed. He’d always been a detail man himself. Check everything twice, that was his motto. Saves heartache later on.

“I was at the track that night,” Bobby said.

“I remember now.”

“Moonlighting,” Bobby said. “My ex-wife ran up the credit cards to the max before she took off. That’s why I work a second job.”

“You meet all kinds of people, working a place like the track.”

“I’ll say,” Bobby agreed. “You name it, I’ve seen it.”

“You knew Rosie?”

“Sure,” Bobby said lightly. “Everybody out there knew Rosie. Nice girl. I’ll tell you, it was a hell of a shock when I saw who it was.”

Truman nodded and said nothing. It was a technique he’d learned as a reporter. Sometimes you found out more by the questions you didn’t ask. He had a lot of questions about the murder of Rosie Figueroa.

“Mr. Kicklighter,” Bobby said, leaning forward. “Has your friend, Mr. Wisnewski, said anything at all about that night? What he and that girl were doing in that service area? It’s restricted, you know, only authorized track personnel were supposed to be down there.”

Truman laughed. “Mel thinks he was at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, watching Roberto Clemente get a hit off Bob Gibson that night.”

Bobby’s eyebrows shot up.

“Alzheimer’s,” Truman said. “I thought you people were aware of his condition.”

“We were told that he was confused, possibly senile,” Bobby said. “And he really has no idea what he saw or did that night? For real?”

“He’s a sick, confused old man,” Truman said sadly. “The night he spent in jail damn near killed him. His wife has to put him in a nursing home, you know. The judge made it a condition of dropping the charges.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Bobby said. “It must be tough for Mrs. Wisnewski. But let me ask you something, Mr. Kicklighter…”

“What’s that?”

“Okay. Did I understand correctly that you told one of the officers that Mr. Wisnewski went looking for Rosie to buy a tout sheet?”

“That’s right. I told it to all your people,” Truman said. “Mel went off to buy the damned thing before I could stop him.”

“Did Mr. Wisnewski say why he was so anxious to do that?”

“I told you,” Truman said, letting the annoyance creep into his voice, “she told Mel last year that she was working on a new system. Something surefire that would mean guaranteed winning picks. Big money. It was all a lot of hooey, but you couldn’t tell Mel that. He liked Rosie. He was convinced she was some kind of genius.”

Bobby’s voice was almost a whisper now. “Did he say anything about a computer program?”

“A computer program? Come on. Where would somebody like this girl get a computer program?”

“Rosie’s boyfriend was a computer programmer,” Bobby said. “We have information that the two of them had developed some kind of computer program that was eighty percent accurate in picking winning dogs.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yes, sir,” Bobby said. “If your friend Mr. Wisnewski knew about that program, that could have been his motive for murdering her. To get this computer program. It could be worth a lot of money to some people.”

“Mel bet two-dollar quinellas,” Truman pointed out. “Does that sound like he was a gambling kingpin or something? Look. I told you, Mel is seventy-eight years old. He knows as much about computers as Job’s hen turkey. If there really is some kind of computer thing involved, then that’s your motive. Find somebody who wanted that thing bad enough to kill for it. Somebody who’d know what to do with it.”

“He could take it to somebody who would know exactly what to do with it,” Bobby pointed out. “There are computer shops all over town.”

“Have you found this computer program?” Truman demanded. “Did they find it when your people took Mel into custody?”

“No. But your friend could have taken it. He could have hidden it somewhere. Passed it off to a partner, maybe. That fenced area leads out to the parking lot. He could have tossed it to somebody on the other side of the fence.”

“And then sat down beside the dead girl to wait for the police?” Truman said, scoffing. “You really believe that cockamamie theory?”

“What about the knife?” Bobby demanded. “And the blood? His fingerprints were all over that knife. Her blood was on his hands and his clothes.”

“I never saw Mel with a knife,” Truman said. “Pearl says he had a little pocketknife he used to take fishing. But it’s in his dresser drawer. She checked. It’s right there. You can ask her.”

Bobby stood up and straightened the crease in his slacks. “Maybe I will. Is she home right now?”

Butch Goolsby snuck a peek at himself in the motel room window before he knocked. “Lookin’ good, Butch,” he said. He was a little nervous, but he’d knocked back two or three healthy slugs of Early Times at home, just to take the edge off.

“Butch? Is that you, baby? Come on in. The door’s open.”

“Baby?”

She hadn’t called him baby since she was eighteen years old. Baby?

The room was nice. King-sized bed, big sliding glass doors that opened onto a balcony. You could see the Gulf of Mexico from the doorway, see the waves rolling in, the blue sky and white sand.

“Get whatever you want out of the minibar,” she called from behind the bathroom door. “I’ll be right out.”

Chivas Regal looked good. He fixed it with a splash of water. Then he went out on the balcony and watched the crazy-ass tourists frolicking in the waves. Swimming in April. Christ. It was 80 degrees out, but the thought of getting in that water before July gave Butch goose bumps.

Suddenly she was beside him, kissing his cheek, letting her breast brush up against his bare arm for maybe half a second.

“I’m so glad you came,” she said, a sob catching in her throat. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

She’d been crying.

“What is it, Cookie?”

She turned and buried her head in his shoulders, wrapping her long, tanned arms around his neck, pressing herself tightly to him.

“I’m scared,” she sobbed. “I could lose my job. If he fires me, I’ll lose everything. My condo, my car. Everything. I’ll end up on welfare. Oh my God, Butch, I don’t know what to do.”

He buried his nose in her hair. She smelled like a flower garden. Her hair was silky, slightly mussed. His hands stroked the bare shoulders, the arms, rested lightly on that tight little ass of hers. Was she wearing any panties? Then the hands moved slowly upward …

She slid his hands back around her waist. The horny little creep hadn’t changed any. Here she was crying her heart out and he was trying to cop a feel. Better get down to business before he tried to jump her bones right out there on the balcony.

“What is it, hon?” he asked, all loving concern. “Tell Big Butch.”

She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at that one. Yeah, she’d called him that, back in the bad old days, when she was trying to sweet-talk him into letting her have her way. He was Big Butch and Little Butch, well, Little Butch was pressing up against her silk dress in a fairly insistent manner. That was Butch’s main problem in life. He was always letting Little Butch make his decisions for him.

Cookie wiped at the tears on her face, sniffing loudly.

“You didn’t see it on the news?”

“What?” Butch asked, alarmed that she might be referring to the little problem he and Curtis had run into at the dog track.

“Those old people at the Fountain of Youth. They’re making all kinds of trouble.”

Butch wrinkled his brow. “The Fountain of Youth?”

“The place I work,” Cookie said sharply. “Remember, I told you I’m the office manager? I’ve been there a year, Butch.”

“Oh yeah,” Butch said. He remembered no such thing. “The Fountain of Youth. I remember. So what’s the deal?”

She told him all of it.

“And the worst thing is, this horrible nasty little midget. Ollie Zorn, that’s his name.”

“A midget’s gonna get you fired?” Butch asked in disbelief.

“He’s deranged,” Cookie said. “He stood up in this meeting and as much as told me he’d get me fired. And then he tried to get everybody to go on strike. You know, so they won’t get out of the hotel during the conversion. And then today he was on the news. He made us look like we were throwing all these old people out on the street.”

“Why’s that gonna get you in trouble?” Butch asked.

“My boss hates publicity,” Cookie said, “especially bad publicity. The little twerp’s making the church look bad. That makes me look bad.”

“Church?”

Cookie wanted to scream. “The Church of Cosmic Unity. That’s who bought the hotel. Reverend Newby, Jewell Newby, he’s my boss. He’s gonna turn the hotel into luxury condos for church members. But first we have to get these old geezers out of there.”

“Why?” Butch still didn’t get what had Cookie so worked up.

“Because they’re poor!” Cookie shrieked, finally losing it. “They’re old and they’re poor and they smell funny. We want them out.”

“Oh,” Butch said slowly. “What do you want from me?”

“I want,” she said slowly, through clenched teeth, “you … to … get rid of that goddamned dwarf!”

Butch smiled. He pulled Cookie closer, let his hands rest right where her panty line should have been. “Is that all?”

“Palm View,” Truman repeated. “That’s the name of this place. I don’t see any palms. You see any palm trees?”

Jackleen looked around the reception area. They were sitting on an armless turquoise plastic sofa. There was a glass-and-chrome coffee table, and at a right angle to the sofa, an armless orange plastic chair. The floor was white terrazzo. Fluorescent light overhead gave the room a hard blue glare. The coffee table held back issues of Modern Maturity magazine and a display of brochures neatly fanned out over the glass: Managing Incontinence; Estate Planning Tips; Your Role in Elder Care.

“Miss Pearl said there’s a garden in the back where the guests can sit in the sun,” Jackleen said. “That’s probably where they got the palm trees. You can’t put palm trees in a parking lot. People run over them. The Publix near my house, all the palm trees are dead ‘cause the tourists keep backin’ up into ‘em. Check that garden out.”

“Probably plastic,” Truman said, rubbing his arms. “Jeez, it’s cold in here. Why do they keep it so cold? These old people hate the cold.”

Jackleen rolled her eyes. He’d been bitching and complaining about this nursing home from the minute they set out this morning.

“It smells like pee in here,” Truman said. “You smell it?”